


and turn the white snow red

by ariabrook



Series: Lyra Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, F/M, Hypothermia, Injury, Lullabies, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Near Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2823092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariabrook/pseuds/ariabrook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haven. An odd word for a place so cold that she could feel it in her bones. Yet as she stumbled through the snow—towards light or hope or just simply an end, she could sense a warmth radiate from somewhere. Perhaps it was just her body going numb, tricking her into believing that she was getting warmer, but maybe, just maybe, she might make it out of this alive. Maker knows stranger things had happened.</p><p>[Cullen/Human Female Inquisitor]</p><p>Set directly after the confrontation at Haven, both during and after the Inquisitor's snowy trek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and turn the white snow red

**Author's Note:**

> In case the tags didn't clue you in, major DA:I spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk!
> 
> I wrote this using my Inquisitor's name (Lyra Trevelyan), and although she is a warrior, this could conceivably be about a mage Trevelyan, as there are only a few references to her weaponry throughout the piece. Also, I'm a huge sucker for A) snow, B) hikes through snow, C) one half of a couple carrying the other after some traumatic event, D) sickfics, and E) lullabies. So this is a weird mixture of all of those things, I guess.
> 
> Fleet Foxes's “White Winter Hymnal” provided the lyrics for the title. I recommend you listen to it, it's a fantastic song!

She had never been so cold. Not even when she’d attempted to run away when she was eight after her older brother had been taken to the Ostwick Circle. It had been cold that winter night, with tracings of frost along the boughs of the trees, and the stars above had been clear.

Her father had found her, she remembered. He had sent out three search parties besides, but he was the one who lifted her from the patch of long grass she’d been crouched in and up onto the chestnut horse that he rode. He’d swung up behind her, holding her gently to steady her, and when she let out a few more dry sobs, he’d held her close. It was one of the most vivid memories she had, and even now she could recall her father’s hands on her waist, the misty breath of the horse in front of her, the scent of pine and loneliness.

But Lyra Trevelyan was not in Ostwick, and there was no one to save her out here.

Above her, the stars were as clear as they had been that night, but they felt more remote. As if they were bright jewels in the crown of a king that sat in judgement over her. _Maker, can you see me now? Is this what you intended?_

She hadn’t prayed—not truly—in many years, but now, she was close. The rusted greatsword she’d picked up below the tunnels was the only thing she had to defend herself, and her armor was the only bastion against the snows of Haven. And still the carnage plagued her mind. She saw the abomination standing over her, red and terrible, heard his voice seeping into the darkest corners of her mind, infecting it like a virus. She saw her herbalist’s face turn to ash, heard her scream of terror as the fire took her bones. She saw the tents of her followers set alight, blazing against the broken sky.

Nausea overcame her, and she sank to her knees, bile rising in her throat. She retched what was left of the meal she’d eaten six hours ago onto the snow. Her legs had become so cold that she could no longer feel the snow around them, and so she sat there, shivering, watching the black spots in front of her eyes dance and feeling the wind bite her ears and neck.

She couldn’t be sure, couldn’t afford to take off her armor and look in this weather, but she was fairly sure she was bleeding. Underneath her chainmail, somewhere around her ribcage, pain spiked in erratic bursts, and she could swear she felt her skin dampen. It could have been merely an illusion, brought on by her frozen mind, but she… she was not certain.

Her hands had turned numb a while ago. They felt warm, now, although the skin around her knuckles had cracked and begun to ooze blood. She tightened one into a fist, and felt her fingertips just barely brush her palms.

Bracing her arm against the ground, Lyra pulled herself up onto her hands and knees, and then, putting her elbow on her thigh, half hauled and half pushed herself to standing. The wind was still swirling mercilessly, blowing snow into her face and coating her eyelashes and hair with crystals. She could feel snot dripping from her nose.  
  
She took a few shaky steps forward. The sword on her back felt like a thousand pound weight dragging her to the earth, but she couldn't abandon it, nor could she stop. She could not die here, out alone in the cold, not after she'd promised so many people that she'd survive. Perhaps not directly, but she'd... she was...  
  
Her vision blurred, and she raised an aching hand to swipe the stray strands of hair out of her face. She'd promised them. Promised that she'd come back. She'd promised him.  
  
In the hall, before she'd gone to face the monster and he'd evacuated the camp. He had not yet out on his helm, nor she hers, and it hurt her now to recall his eyes.  
  
“Be careful,” he'd said.  
  
“If I—” she'd started, but he cut her off.  
  
“You won't.” He'd placed the lion's helm over his head. “You can't.”  
  
“Cullen...” she'd said, but not aloud, or perhaps not loud enough for him to hear her. Which was it? She couldn't remember. She couldn't...  
  
Her knees buckled beneath her. Her ribcage cried out in protest as she hit the ground, and she could barely keep her head raised above the level of the snow. Her hands were gone, she thought. She couldn't feel them, or her feet. She was sleepy, very sleepy, and the snow was so soft and comforting. Perhaps she'd rest, just for a while.  
  
One corner of her brain struggled against this inclination. She wanted to crush it. She wanted to ignore the instinct and just sink into the cold and the earth and sleep. There was nothing out here, anyway. Nothing but her own dying breath and her thoughts.  
  
In the back of her mind, she heard the faint sounds of voices, the smell of soup. A dream, she thought, just a dream.  
  
Her head felt so very, very heavy.  
  
And, as if she'd been transported back to that fateful night so long ago, she saw a horse before her, through the snow, with a rider in black atop the creature. Her breath came unevenly through her throat. As she watched, the horse wheeled and turned away.  
  
 _No. No, you can't leave me here. You can't leave me here!_  
  
“Father,” she croaked, her tongue stiff. “Father.”  
  
She reached out her hand. Not her sword hand, but her left one. The one with the green mark upon it, that still glowed dimly.  
  
“F-father. Father, it's me. M-maker, h-help me. Father. F-father.”  
  
The horse and rider were now only a blurry shape in the distance. With the last of her strength, Lyra let out a strangled shout.  
  
“No!”  
  
The figure paused, and then slowly turned towards her, growing bigger and bigger as it neared her. She was almost too exhausted to realize that it was no longer the shape of a horse and rider, but of a person—no, several people, some with torches, some with swords. And voices. So many voices, all mixed and pitched and distorted by the wind.  
  
Lyra let her head drop as the warm light neared. Her eyelids slid shut, and as she let go of the last drop of her strength, she heard a familiar voice, muffled yet distinguishable, call her name.  
  
“Trevelyan!”

* * *

 

Shadows. Shadows and ash. Mumbling. Faint notes, like music.

Pain. So much pain. Her hands and feet were on fire, and someone had stuck a dagger in between her ribs. Her eyes rolled forward and back restlessly. She opened her mouth to scream, but her throat was dry, and all that came out was a raspy screech.

There was a warm pressure on her forehead in an instant, and a presence above her. A familiar scent, and an accent that she couldn’t quite place.

“Hush, child.”

The Chantry mother. Her name was just beyond Lyra’s reach. G-something. Gertrude? No, that didn’t sound right. Glinda? Gretl?

Giselle. Mother Giselle.

“Is she awake?” A different voice, his voice. Lyra tried to make a sound, but her vocal strength had been taken up by her previous efforts. She wiggled one of her hands, and remembered all of her pain.

Blackness overtook her.

* * *

 

She dreamt of a black castle upon a green hill, with white tombstones along the path. Her mother and father were inside, sipping cups of red wine and laughing softly, and her brother played with a flickering, floating globe while her sister drew intricate patterns on the floor in chalk. But above them loomed a gray mist in the shape of a skull, and Lyra shook.

* * *

Someone was singing when she woke. A smooth tenor voice recited the lyrics of a song that Lyra was sure she’d heard before. Perhaps a Chantry tune? No, it was too casual for a hymn. A tavern song, then, or a local ballad.

Everything was blue and black when she opened her eyes. The pain remained, but it was lesser so. She could feel warmth now, at least. She shifted her eyes from left to right, taking in her surroundings, adjusting herself to the light, until she caught the silhouette of a figure standing by the flap that served as the doorway into the tent. Tall, armored, with feathered pauldrons and a profile that she recognized.

“Cullen,” she croaked.  
  
He whirled around in an instant, and at her side in half that time. Even through the haze that still permeated her head, Lyra could see the concern in his eyes. Golden and brown and warm, but sad somehow, as if he'd seen too much for just one head to hold onto. He was saying something now. Her gaze fell from his eyes to his lips, lingering on his scar, and then taking in the movement of his mouth in tandem with the sounds he produced. Deciphering just a few words felt like undergoing weeks of excavation.  
  
“Are you alright?” Instinctively, she tried to nod, but winced instantly from the soreness in her neck. His eyes widened. “Don't move. You're not ready to walk around just yet.”  
  
“Do you—” Lyra felt her voice crack in her throat more than she heard it. She wet her lips with what little saliva she had and tried again. “Do you have any water?”  
  
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Cullen moved out of her view, and, as much as she wanted to keep her eyes on him, Lyra didn't bother to try turning her head again. She'd learned that lesson. Instead, she listened as he ruffled about in another corner of the tent, and watched the fabric that formed the makeshift ceiling ripple slightly.  
  
“Here.” He came back into her line of sight, bearing a small flask.  
  
Lyra managed to smile. “I asked for water, not alcohol.”  
  
Maybe it was a trick of the light of her own lingering delirium, but she could have sworn that she saw his face flush red.  
  
“Oh, no, it's water. I-I mean it looks like it's—b-but it's not! I, uh—”  
  
“I was teasing, Cullen.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
She smiled—at least that was the one thing that didn't hurt her. Still a bit flustered, Cullen unscrewed the cap of the flask and bent over her. He held the bottle to Lyra's lips, and she wearily inclined her head to meet the rim, until his free hand moved to the back of her head, supporting her with a gentle pressure. The water tasted like nectar from the Maker; and her parched throat welcomed it. She swallowed once, twice, a little bit of the water running down her chin. It was as if she’d been in a desert without liquid for weeks.

Only when the flask was empty did he pull away, releasing her head softly. The absence of his hands was odd—she felt colder, somehow, without them there. His eyes met hers, and he coughed a bit nervously before glancing away. She smiled contentedly.

“So,” she began again, “what happened?”

There was silence for a few seconds as Cullen stared off somewhere beyond her head, and she thought he hadn’t heard her question until he answered.

“We took the back passage from Haven, just like we’d planned. Our men were scared, but they moved along. When we came out into the light, it was…” His voice became quieter. “It was… difficult. The avalanche missed us, thank the Maker, but none of us knew if you were alive or dead.”

Lyra noticed the shift in his tone. “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Cullen smiled, his gaze connecting with hers again. “So you are. We walked on up into the mountains until it got dark, found a place to camp, and here we are. I set up a perimeter, and Leliana had her people scouting for you, hoping that they’d find… _something_.” He sighed, his brow furrowed. “I found you—or, _we_ found you out in the snow. You remember that, right?”

Lyra nodded, noting that she could now move her head with almost no pain. “A little. I was not exactly in the most pristine state of mind when you came upon me.”

“I know. I carried you back to camp, and Mother Giselle tended to you, and all of us took turns watching you after you were out of the woods, so to speak. All of us meaning Leliana, Josephine, and I, and of course Cassandra and Varric and sometimes Solas…”

But she wasn’t listening anymore. She was grasping at memories that swirled away from her like snow on a breeze. _I carried you back_ , he'd said. She couldn't remember much after she'd fallen unconscious, but fragments lingered around the edge of her mind. Just little snippets of senses—the smell of the cold mixed with something warm and comforting, the feeling of feathers against her cheek, the soft crunching of boots in the snow and the sharp inhale and exhale of lungs processing frigid air. Or maybe she was just imagining it all.  
  
“Trevelyan?”  
  
Oh, but that voice she certainly remembered. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I was drifting.”  
  
There was something bordering on concern in his eyes. “Are you alright? You're not feeling unwell, are you? I can run for a healer—”  
  
“Cullen, I'm fine. Just tired, is all.” It wasn't a lie. Although she'd only been awake for a few minutes, her eyes were beginning to droop. Sleep seemed deliciously close. “And...” She paused, summoning up the courage. “And you can call me Lyra, if you like. It makes no sense for me to use your given name and not the other way around, yes?”  
  
Now, his eyes were filled with something she couldn't quite place. “Lyra.” He seemed to be turning the word over on his tongue. One corner of his lip quirked up, stretching his scar with it. “Would you like me to fetch you some more blankets, or another pillow?”  
  
“No, no, it's fine. Thank you.”  
  
There was a long pause, not uncomfortable, but noticeable.  
  
Lyra broke it. “Was... was that you singing earlier?”  
  
Any trace of a smirk that he had possessed after saying her name completely vanished. The color rushed to his face, turning his skin red. “Ah, yes, that was, uh, that was me. I hope, I mean I hope it didn't bother you, or, uh, wake you up?”  
  
She smiled. “It was lovely.”  
  
“Really?” He seemed utterly surprised. “Well, yes... good, then.”  
  
“Do you know any lullabies?”  
  
It took a second for her question to completely register with him, but his face was worth watching for the range of emotions that passed across it. Confusion, then surprise, then delight, then mellowing out into something close to bashfulness.  
  
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He cleared his throat. “I do.”  
  
“Sing me one, please.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Then, a soft song filled the air. Lyra recognized neither the words nor the tune, but it lifted her heart all the same. Something about a poor farmer and his lovely wife, and their precious child being taken away from them. Her eyes closed halfway through the third chorus, but the notes and breaths of Cullen's voice resonated in her head.  
  
Slowly, softly all went black.

* * *

 

When she next woke, it was dawn.

 


End file.
